Subodh Gupta: A Glass of Water

“This is new for me; this is the first time that I have enlarged an object into a sculpture. I kept the broken lamp in my studio for three years, observing it every day, before I decided to make it into a sculpture. The original objects have a history and have lived a life, arriving at a place where they have no value except for their weight and maybe the material. Bringing them back to life is what’s interesting for me.

“I have always treated space like a stage. The way I display my work, and place things, I do feel like sometimes, yes, it’s like a stage. I feel very close to the work as if it’s a part of me,” said Subodh Gupta to TOI.

Massive scale and artistic context combine to create Subodh Gupta’s latest show at Hauser & Wirth New York. ‘A glass of water,’ has a humble man common man context, and it sets you thinking about the place of everyday symbolism in art practice. Think of the total lunar eclipse and a fascinating oil reflecting that metaphor meets your gaze – Full Moon at first looks like a plate with flatware, but a closer look reveals the lunar orb. Comprising a group of sculptures, optically incandescent paintings, and two slyly illusionist installations, the new work on view further extends Gupta’s ongoing investigation into the sustaining and even transformational power of everyday objects and activities. Even cuisine can become art in Subodh Gupta’s hands.

Buttons and cans, steel cups of water, simple bread dough, and the forks and smears of sauce left upon plates after a meal, all serve as elements in the artist’s complex choreography of meaning and oppositional values. In the world of Subodh Gupta, the most quotidian objects and experiences lie in perfect equipoise between artistic, cultural, and spiritual abundance and emptiness, the twin companions of all who reside in the era of globalization and Diaspora.

A button becomes a bronze sculpture. Subodh’s sculptures assert that every object and experience possesses the possibility of having a cultural or spiritual meaning, and, simultaneously, the possibility of being overlooked and taken for granted. Evocative of both half-full and half-empty perceptions of life, “A Glass of Water” explores the implications of this dichotomy in an era of Diaspora and globalization.

Gupta has just been hailed as the star of Indian contemporary art by the French media. His slick, ingenuous use of homespun materials reflects the tipping point of India’s economic transformation and strikes a chord with international art audiences. Gupta’s installation of cooking utensils first made waves at London’s Frieze Art Fair in 2005, and “in a metallic flash everything changed… At the 2007 Venice Biennale, his monumental 1,000kg skull made of pots and pans, ‘Very Hungry God’, which French billionaire François Pinault placed outside his Palazzo Grassi gallery became one of the must-see attractions. Floating on the canal it created gasps of delight amongst art lovers. He has created the interest and intrigue for installation art in India.

Subodh Gupta’s first patron in India was Bodhi Art collector Amit Judge. And Bodhi Art had some of his finest unveilings. His most important collector in London was Charles Saatchi. In fact when you watch Nigella Bites on TLC you can find a Subodh Gupta painting of pots and pans on her kitchen wall. In an interview years ago he said: “I respect Pinault and [the late French film-maker Claude] Berri. They have money and they collect art. Four or five people in India are among the richest in the world but they have no passion for supporting art. We only have the Poddars who are sharing their collection.”

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

Author

Critic and Curator Uma Nair has been writing for the past 29 years on art and culture She has written as critic for Times of India and Economic Times. She believes that art is a progressive sojourn. And there are those who are taught and those who are self taught. She herself had learnt by looking at the best shows in Washington D.C. and New York. And life is about learning and growing...

Critic and Curator Uma Nair has been writing for the past 29 years on art and culture She has written as critic for Times of India and Economic Times. She b. . .

From around the web

More from The Times of India

Comments

Top Comment

()

Author

Critic and Curator Uma Nair has been writing for the past 29 years on art and culture She has written as critic for Times of India and Economic Times. She believes that art is a progressive sojourn. And there are those who are taught and those who are self taught. She herself had learnt by looking at the best shows in Washington D.C. and New York. And life is about learning and growing...

Critic and Curator Uma Nair has been writing for the past 29 years on art and culture She has written as critic for Times of India and Economic Times. She b. . .